Chapter 7: The Naked Truth
Things go awry for our two young lovers.
With clammy paws, they dragged him into the back of the cavern and chained him to the floor. He struggled against his binds, but to no avail and he cursed the day that he came to this hell spawned island to bury his treasure. "Twas an ill wind that blew me into your arms," he called out to her. She just laughed as she stirred her potion and began to cast a spell.
The two reporters stood in front of the sheriff, who glanced from the computer and then over at the much smaller mammals. "We're with the press and you have no right to tell us we can't go out to Kole's campsite!" the groundhog in a dark blue two piece suit complained as he scratched the brownish grey fur on his cheek and then nervously adjusted his blue tie. The taller black and white stripped skunk in the beat up old jeans and blue sweatshirt just leaned back and let his colleague do the talking.
"All I'm saying is that you have to have the proper permits to go into that area," the walrus in the tan uniform shrugged. "As for your rights, this is Seaside and not the city. We have our own rules and laws over here."
"But that's not right!" the reporter whined. "I want to talk to the county commissioner!"
"Sure and he'd love to talk to you too when he gets back home from his latest job."
"Where is he? We'll go to see him now."
"Mary, where is Commissioner Bowhead?" the walrus yelled into the next room.
"Somewhere off the coast of Lesser Amir, I think?" the petite seal called back. "He's got that towing contract."
"Your county commissioner is a whale?" the reporter asked. "How can your commissioner be a sea mammal?"
"This county just doesn't end at the seashore," the walrus snapped back as he stood up and towered over the smaller mammals. "That is a very close minded terrestrial bigoted statement, what do you have against aquatic mammals?"
The groundhog's ears reddened. "Nothing! It's just that it's unusual," he stammered. "I mean…well I have a deadline and I need to speak to Mister Kole."
"As I said, you'll need a permit to go into that area of the county. There are reports of unexploded ordinance all around that place left over from the last big war some seventy years ago and it is closed to the public. No permits, no entry! I'm going to have my deputy escort you back to the ferry or the county line, so you don't do something stupid and get your head blown off."
As the tall uniformed bear ushered to two reporters out of the office, Mary looked into the room. "Unexploded ordnance?" she laughed. "You haven't used that one in years."
"We did find that mine which floated onto the shore up that way," the walrus objected as he gave her a big grin.
"That was not a mine! That was a round buoy that everyone thought was a mine and you had fun blowing it up!
"Well I did have signs put all around the area that warn of unexploded ordinance," the walrus added as he continued to surf the internet, looking for stories about Hopps and Wilde.
Karen closed the refrigerator and stepped out of the camper. "We now have plenty to eat!" she called over to the fox who was inside the shower hut hooking the water supply to the copper pipes of the propane heater.
"That's nice and now that I have everything hooked up, how about a nice long and hot shower?" he called back.
"Do I need a shower? I guess so, since I smell like I've been sleeping with a fox!"
"Gee thanks!" he yelled from inside the shower hut. "I just wanted to play with the water heater."
"Only the water heater, is that all you want to play with?"
"No…not just the water heater," he admitted with a chuckle. He took his clothes off and turned on the water, adjusting its flow to warm. A few moments later, she joined him in the shower.
"Now I will confront the fox when he gets out of the camper," the reporter told his cameriamammal. "This is my big chance to break into becoming a news reporter and just doing the weather reports, so just keep filming no matter what happens, okay?"
The skunk nodded as he shouldered his camera and focused on the camper's doorway. The groundhog lifted his paw to knock on the door, but there was giggling and a door behind them slammed. The skunk swung his camera around and his jaw dropped at the sight of a very naked and very sexy sand cat being chased by an equally naked fennec fox as they ran out of the worn grey building. "Holy shit!" he mumbled.
Karen was shocked as she saw the two strangers with a camera and tried to turn to run back towards the shower hut, but she stumbled and fell muzzle first onto the ground. "Turn that off!" Stone snarled as he leapt towards the camera, trying to knock it away from filming them. "You're trespassing."
"Mister Kole, what are your comments about the Purity Law?" the reporter asked with a grin. "Why are you hiding out here in Seaside?" The fox 's punch was his answer, but he was too late because the whole thing had already been broadcasted.
Finn looked over at Nick and his friend looked tired. "Shit Wilde, you look like you need to sleep for a month!" he commented to the larger fox.
The red fox didn't answer, but sat up straight as if he saw something. "Finn, look!" he said as he pointed over at the television behind the bar. "Isn't that Stone and Karen?"
The fennec fox looked up at the image being broadcast. That was definitely his son with his girlfriend and they were stark naked, although the station did pixel out their private parts. Then the camera panned in on the fox's snarling teeth and the punch he gave the similar sized groundhog.
"Showing his fangs and assaulting a reporter…" the news anchor droned on.
"Sheriff charged the reporter and his cameriamammal with trespassing…"
"No charges against Mister Kole…"
"Mister Kole refused to make a public statement…"
Finn's ears went flat and he emitted a low growl, "I'll hunt that SOB down and bite his face off,"
"That is one cute cat!" someone commented down the bar and Finn's ears shot up. Nick's paw held him down as he tried to get off the stool.
"I think that the fox should be left alone," another voice said. "This is getting stupid. So he's a fox and she's a cat, who cares?"
"It's just unnatural!" a fat beaver in a blue city maintenance worker's uniform spoke up. "They should throw those two perverts in prison."
Finn shook off Nick's paw and hopped up onto the bar, he stomped his way over to the beaver who was twice his size. "That is my son you're dissing!" he growled.
"So what are you going to do about it?" the beaver laughed. "Bite me on my ankle?"
The beer bottle was almost as large as the fox, but Finn swung it with enough force to break it across the beaver's head and then he pounced. A few hours later he was released from jail because the beaver was too embarrassed to press charges and admit he was beaten up by the much smaller fox.
Mabel brought Stone a beer as he and Karen sat at the bar, it had been a long afternoon and most of it had been spent talking with the studio's public relations department. His phone rang and he gave the cat a concerned look before he answered. "Mister Rock…Rip…yeah I know…the paw still hurts some, his head was like a stone…keep my wrists what?...do what?...really?...Oh, yeah I''ll tell her that right away…thanks!"
Karen looked over at him. "So did you get canned?" she asked.
"No, but he gave me some advice on how to hit someone without hurting my paw. Oh and he said that you look really good without your clothes on and wanted to know if you would consider a part in the new movie, although he also told me to remind you it is PG13 and you'll have to be dressed."
"Stoney that's not funny!" she snapped at him as her tail flicked in agitation. There was laughter from the other patrons inside the bar.
"Ah…Karen, he was serious about the job. He said that the PR guys are ecstatic over the whole thing. They are playing it up that we are just two young lovers trying to have their privacy and were ambushed by a trespassing reporter. That I defended your honor…we're the victims."
"So you didn't get fired? You were serious that he really wants me in the movie?"
"Yep, welcome to the life of a celebrity!" Stone laughed.
"You two can't stay at the campsite," Al interjected. "So you're staying upstairs above the bar, where the rest of us can keep an eye on you both."
"But what about all that food at the campground?" Karen asked. "It'll go bad!"
"Oh, we took care of that already," Al chuckled.
The paparazzi descended on the campsite in droves and they all anticipated the money making photo of the fox and cat, but instead they were greeted by an angry male raccoon in ragged blue jean overalls, chewing on a fish head and firing rock salt from his shotgun at the trucks.
